Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/68

was able to extricate himself from his difficulties. He had been ordered to go down into Staffordshire, but, urging his own health and that of his wife, was allowed to stay in London from June till Michaelmas 1552. In December a pardon was granted to him for all excepting crown debts, and he was allowed to compound for his fine. In April 1553 a part of the amount still due from him was remitted, and he was again received into favour.

At the death of Edward he joined Queen Jane's council. He signed the letter to Lord Rich on 19 July 1553, exhorting him to be firm in her cause; but he probably acted under compulsion, as on 20 June he sanctioned the proclamation of Queen Mary in London, and with Arundel set off to bring her thither. He conducted Northumberland from Cambridge to the Tower, became one of Mary's privy council, took, with his wife, a prominent part in the coronation, and was restored to the Garter on 27 Sept. 1553. He was commissioned to treat as to the queen's marriage in March 1553–4, and was entrusted with large discretionary powers. He resisted Wyatt, and Strype seems right in suggesting that at heart he was a Roman catholic (cf. Dixon, Hist. of the Church of England, iv. 162). He would not, however, agree to either the bill which made it treason to take arms against the queen's husband or that directed against heretics, nor would he agree to exclude Elizabeth from the succession, as Gardiner suggested; he thereby, for a time, incurred the ill-will of the queen and of Gardiner, and it was proposed to imprison him. The fact probably was that he was of tolerant disposition, and, although he afterwards showed some inclination to accept the persecuting policy (cf. ib. p. 171) and sat on a heresy commission in January 1554–5, he argued for very gentle measures of repression. In August 1554 the high stewardship of Cambridge University, which had been taken from him at Mary's accession, was restored to him. He, Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir Edward Cecil went to Brussels in November 1554 to conduct Cardinal Pole to London on his mission of reconciliation.

With Philip, Paget was in high favour, and, after Gardiner's death in November 1555, Philip strongly urged Mary to appoint him chancellor in Gardiner's place. But Mary refused, on the ground that he was a layman, and Heath succeeded to the office [see Mary I]. Paget, however, was made lord privy seal on 29 Jan. 1555–6. In 1556, being at Brussels with King Philip, he is said to have planned the seizure of Sir John Cheke [q. v.] and Sir Peter Carew, which resulted in Cheke's recantation (see Strype, Cheke, p. 108, who relies on Ponet; but cf. Dixon, iv. 609). He formed one of an embassy to France in May 1556. Anne of Cleves, at her death on 17 July 1557, left him a ring. At Elizabeth's accession, according to Cooper, he desired to continue in office, but he had retired from the council in November 1558, and he ceased to be lord privy seal in favour of Sir Nicholas Bacon at the beginning of the new reign. He certainly gave Elizabeth advice on one or two occasions. Paget died on 9 June 1563 at West Drayton House, Middlesex, and was buried at West Drayton. A monument was erected to his memory in Lichfield Cathedral. A portrait by Holbein was in 1890 in the possession of the Duke of Manchester, and has been several times engraved. His common-place book was said to be, in 1818, in the possession of Lord Boston. Paget was a man of ability without much character. He was careful of his estate; Richard Coxe [q. v.] complained to him of the general rapacity of the courtiers with some reason, though he may not have been worse than the other courtiers of Edward VI. In Henry VIII's time he had many grants (cf. Dep.-Keeper of Publ. Records, App. ii. 10th Rep. p. 247) and bought church lands (cf. Tanner). The chief grant he secured was that of Beaudesert in Staffordshire, which has since been the chief seat of the family which he founded. He married Anne, daughter and heiress of Henry Preston, who came of a Westmoreland family, and by her left four sons. Henry, the eldest, was made a knight of the Bath at Mary's coronation; married Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Knevet of Buckenham, Norfolk, and had a daughter Elizabeth, who died young. He succeeded his father, and, dying in 1568, was succeeded by his brother Thomas, third baron Paget [q. v.] Charles, the third son of the first baron, is also separately noticed.